I was in the habit of helping V. out at the Liverpool bar after closing time. Gathering dishes and glasses, maybe doing some washing. I grew to feel this was a kind of obligation, though V. didn’t pay or reward me. I hoped he was pleased. He seemed happy to have me there I guess. Night after night I’d stay after the regulars left and do this work. A woman came in and sat at the bar. I sat next to her and asked V. if he had any ale on tap, hoping he’d at least pour me one for free. I half awoke and thought, is this really true? No, it’s a dream. It can’t be true. I tried to visualize the real bar—it didn’t look like it did in the dream, right? So it had to be a dream. Then I sort of fell back into it and realized, damn, no, of course it’s not a dream. This is real. This is what I do in real life. I stay late at the bar. I clean up in the kitchen. The dream ended with me sitting in the bar with some old friends, including M. B. I reminisced about a crazy woman he’d once dated. How fucked up was that, I asked. He seemed offended and scornful, and took his drawing notebook and bag and went to sit at a table on the other side of the room. When I awoke again it took me some time to be sure that it was a dream after all.